Laminated metal and perspex digital mural

Hi, and welcome to this current entry into the Dumayne Design blog page.

This month I wanted to highlight a particular design and the techniques used to produce it.

Again, a collaborative effort - Esther Vreeland, Dumayne Design and Zart Art worked upon this piece, using a combination of design techniques. The image is a digitally produced illustration depicting a modern, slightly forced perspective streetview of where the artwork is to be based.

Overall, it is a collection of digitally manipulated photographs taken by Vreeland and Dumayne Design, as well as many found object images too - these are from various time periods, some over a hundred years old (such as the two cyclists).

Once the street view was assembled into something aproximating the actual street (!), we augmented the image further, by 'working back into' it - using hand drawn elements to bring a further depth, and more movement to the scene (the car on the road has several line 'shadows'.

As well as hand drawn elements, larger areas such as the sky for example, had further textural layering added - if you look closely you will see a square notepaper covering, as well as some basic cloud linework and also handwriting relating to the image.

As far as the finished image, it was printed directly onto metal, in this case alluminium, then sealed and covered with a non reflective 3mm perspex sheet.

Usually for this type of printing technique, framing is not really required. It is quite a modern printing technique, and sits well in modern settings such as office spaces.

Anyway, that covers the basics of this particular design, thanks for reading, I hope you enjoyed it. More, next month!

Trompe l'oeil effect wallpaper designs

I wanted to draw your attention to a project I am particulary proud of, one that was a collaboration between Dumayne Design, Esther Vreeland and Zart art.

It was for a boutique hotel in the centre of Amsterdam, and the brief was to design a set of bespoke wallpapers for the ceiling, two separate walls and a sliding door in the main dining room area.

The look of the hotel is very unique, with a sumptious feel and modern twist - but equally very cosy too.

The client was requiring a tongue-in-cheek, humourous play on an 18th Century art salon. There was to be a 'trompe l'oeil' effect - in that the wallpaper designs should give the impression that the artifacts actually on the wallpaper were real - a trick of the eye, of course.

The room would be dressed further with furniture of approximately that period later, although I imagine not actual antiques of course!

The sliding door was created as a curiosity cabinet, replete with various objects of curiosity, as the name suggests.

The ceiling papers were a blue sky and cloud design featuring exotic creatures (for the 18th Century) such as monkeys, owls and Birds of Paradise.

The larger wall - a duck egg blue original wallpaper was designed, upon which we mounted a hotch potch of different period paintings, drawings and life studies. Various basic wooden and guilt frames were added to complete the look. A shadow effect was used to add depth to the new 'paintings'.

The owners of the hotel say this particular wall is their 'Instagram wall', as so many of their clients wish to take their own selfies while posing in an 18th Century environment!

Please take a look at the images here, let Dumayne Design know what you think of them, and please get in touch if you want to know more.

First off, a little history

Welcome to my new monthly rolling blog!

As the title suggests and to start with, I have written a little piece below about where and how I started dumayne design, and if this first piece seems a little 'copy and paste', that's because you're reading my old 'about' page, which no longer exists here. Apologies for that, but I figured it was a good place to start...

In future, I will be adding a new feature each month, either directly or loosely relating to dumayne design - I hope you will find them both entertaining and informative, maybe even both. If you have any suggestions about topics you would like to know about, just get in touch. Here's the low down...

I am a British illustrator and designer, who graduated from Southampton University in the 1990’s.

Upon graduation, I began producing illustrative oil painting work based on folklore tales and whimsical stories. These paintings were exhibited and sold through various galleries, primarily in Wales, particularly around the Cardiff area, but also further afield in London, Chester and other cities.

During this time, I also worked with a range of clients including television production companies as their design counsel, as an artist in residence, and for fine art card publishing houses. I pursued the traditional career trajectory of the fine artist for around ten years after University. I produced many privately commissioned artworks as well as gallery pieces, but wanted to commercialise my art further and to expand my creative scope in different directions.

I started to produce computer illustrations in the early 2000’s, using industry standard software, Adobe Illustrator. The digital nature of these drawings meant that instead of a more localised art market, I found I could sell work around the world with ease using various internet portals.

Once I had ‘digitised’ the bulk of my artistic output, the design work I became involved with was more varied. Typical illustrative and design work for me these days involves smartphone ‘app’ designs, website spot illustrations, vehicle decals, business identity stationery and digital artwork prints for hotels, to name a few.

So that about covers the basics (again), please keep a lookout for future posts and I look forward to adding my next installment for your delectation and perusal...